Archive for the ‘20m’ tag

I haven’t reached a decision regarding purchasing a Cushcraft R-8 or a HyGain AV-640. To make matters worse, I am rethinking the possibilities of a ground-mounted installation such as a Hustler 6BTV or a 33 foot vertical.

When it comes to verticals, there are too many options. I still have unanswered questions as well. Primarily, i need to know the consensus on R-8 or AV-640 performance at 10 feet off the ground vs a ground-mounted Hustler 6BTV with a slim radial system to start and a radial system that is unlikely to ever contain more than 32 radials or have any radials longer than about 30 feet.

In the meantime the pressure is growing for me to get something up and operational. Field Day is only two months away now. I’ve been thinking about a dipole.

Nowhere on my lot can I proper install a dipole that will work for 160 or 80 efficiently. At this point I’m questioning whether it would even be feasible to try to install a dipole long enough to cover 40m. This would need to be ~ 66 feet long. The only way I could really do this is to have the feedpoint in the center of the house roof and have something to secure the sloped ends near the edges of the house. The house roof is ~70 feet across. I prefer not to put anything on the roof. An alternative would be to have some sort of mast up in the rear of the house to use as the center support, but then I’d have to figure out how to secure the ends. I would not want the ends to be anywhere near the ground (at least 8 feet off) and would end up having to put some sort of support in the ground on either side to accomplish this.

So, I’ve been thinking about a wire for 20 through 10 meters. This would be 33 feet in length. The orientation is not what i would want. I estimate that if I put up a wire for 20m using a tree as one of the supports, the orientation would be E-W, which means it would favor signals to the North and South. That leaves out a good path to Europe. Although, I wouldn’t mind nabbing some South America.

I really don’t believe I’ll have have something up that is efficient on 80m. At some point I may decide on putting a vertical up. If I do, it’ll only be a mediocre performer on 80 and the bandwidth of the antenna on that band will be very minimal.